PHRC to present plan on Coatesville schools

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, or PHRC, will present a plan of action to Coatesville area community members to help them restore trust in the school district and school board members.

PHRC will address regular meeting items as well as presenting the public with an action plan designed to help the community heal from the wounds created by the racially and sexually charged text messages exchanged between former Coatesville Area School District Superintendent Richard Como and former high school Director of Athletics and Activities Jim Donato.

“This is not a common occurrence,” said Shannon Powell, PHRC director of communications. ”We don’t uncover racially and sexually offensive open communication between administrators and not that it was really open but it was on school property.”

The state organization was asked by the Coatesville Area School District “to provide mandatory sensitivity training to board members, administrators, staff and faculty and to review recommended improvements to the school district’s diversity policies and codes of conduct,” according statement released by the school district in September.

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Since the discovery of the text messages made public at the beginning of the school year, commission partnered with other organizations to make sure equal opportunity in both employment and education opportunities are present in the school district.

Chester County Commissioner Terence Farrell serves as one of 11 commission members.

He said the meeting gives commission the opportunity to present the action plan designed to help the community rebuild from the event surrounding the departures of Como and Donato.

The commission is waiting for school board members to “buy into” the plan of action, Powell said.

According to Powell, the plan will help the school district move initiate courses of action to repair “what’s broken in their environment that led to the two upper level administrators to feel like what they did was OK.”

“If you felt this way about women and minorities, what kind of opportunities were you giving them in the classroom, for career advancement,” Powell said, adding it’s the commission’s job to make sure those opportunities are equal on all levels.

She said the hope is to have school board members agree with the plan before the meeting on March 24.

“We are hopeful that it will get adopted and this would be a step, a huge step, in the healing process in Coatesville,” Farrell said.

Members of the public will be given the opportunity, at the meeting, to address some concerns regarding civil rights issues or work of other organizations “as it relates to the commission’s work,” a public written invitation posted on the school district’s website says.

The invitation from PHRC also states: “Commissioners will not be able to listen to details concerning specific, current complaints filed with PHRC upon which they may have to rule in the future.”

Representatives from the NAACP state chapter and from the U.S. Department of Justice will also be at the meeting.

The meeting is Monday, March 24, at 1 p.m. in the Hutchinson memorial United AME Church, located at 825 Chestnut Street East, Coatesville.

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